Professional Services

Windows 7 Migration Options for Bank ATM

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WINDOWS 7 EXTENDED SUPPORT ENDS IN 2020.
WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS FOR BANK ATM SYSTEMS?
WINDOWS 7 MIGRATION AND THE NEED FOR HARDWARE UPGRADE
A majority of ATMs currently in operation throughout the world use Microsoft Windows 7 or
older versions of Windows operating systems in conjunction with older Intel
®
processors. With
the upcoming end of support for Windows 7, ATM systems will need to be upgraded to a sup-
ported operating system to ensure compliance with PCI security standards. With recent major
retail credit/payment card system breaches, the PCI security standards have new compliance
requirements that include requiring a supported operating system. That is because any ATM
system that remains on an unsupported proprietary operating system can be exposed to a
variety of security threats that can affect ATM operation. In addition, many hardware platforms
internal to current ATMs are too old to be supported by the more current Windows 10. As
a result, a majority of ATM systems will require both an operating system migration and a
computer platform upgrade. Due to technical differences associated with Windows 7 and
Windows 10, the internal work to migrate ATM applications from Windows 7 to Windows 10
can take a team of software developers as much as a year and sometimes longer. These dynam-
ics will make the migration a more expensive endeavor than simply obtaining Windows 10.
SUPPLIER PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MISALIGNMENT AS HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
This expensive upgrade of both operating system and hardware will likely continue to
repeat in the future as Microsoft delivers another new series of Windows products, as was
seen in the transition from Windows XP to Windows 7.
In this immediate market inflection point, ATM manufacturers may be best served by look-
ing at the opportunity to break the cycle. This is the time for ATM operators and manufactur-
ers to consider moving to an open source operating system, such as Wind River
®
Linux, so
that software lifecycle schedules are not dictated by a single organization.
An Inflection Point for ATM Operators to Consider Migrating to Linux
Market Brief
AN INTEL COMPANY
™
WHEN IT MATTERS, IT RUNS ON WIND RIVER
With the announcement by Microsoft that extended support
for Windows 7 will end in 2020, bank automatic teller machine
(ATM) operators and manufacturers have come to a market
inflection point in the operation and maintenance of ATM sys-
tems. The business question is whether to upgrade their ATM
operating systems to Microsoft Windows 10, understanding
that in so doing they would incur a significant software migra-
tion cost and potential hardware migration requirement.